All Is Bright

Gaudeamus Omnes

Marek Kaczyński

Based on a Gregorian chant, the Latin text comes from an antiphon (a short chant in Christian liturgy sung as a refrain) that commemorates the Feast of the Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary. This feast, which dates back to the 5th century, is celebrated by Catholics as the day Mary was raised to Heaven in both body and soul. Polish composer Marek Raczynski combines the lyrical melody of the original chant with contemporary harmonies that shimmer with dissonances. The initial prayer of “Let all rejoice” builds from slow, focused harmonic chords into a rich and layered climactic “Alleluia!” that evokes the joy of an angelic choir.

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O Oriens

Melissa Dunphy

“O Oriens” is the fifth of seven medieval antiphons which traditionally accompany the Evening Prayer on the last seven days of Advent, the Christian season leading up to the celebration of Christmas. Each chant expresses anticipation of a different aspect of the coming of the Messiah. When asked to set one of these antiphons, Australian-born composer Melissa Dunphy selected “O Oriens” for its universality, calling it “a plaintive call for light in the form of love, knowledge, and peace both in the world and within each of us.” Dunphy’s piece begins with a traditional unison chant before weaving in more contemporary harmonies that, despite growing complexity, continue to call back to the original, ancient setting. 

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Audience Carol: The First Nowell

arr. David Willcocks

Piano, Tristan Leung

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The Star

Patrick Hawes

“The Star” debuted in 2023 as the fifth of six movements in English composer Patrick Hawes’ The Nativity, settings of a collection of poems by the composer’s brother Andrew. The three movements titled for human figures (“The Infant”, “The Shepherds”, and “The Magi”) take a more upbeat and celebratory tone; the rest (“The Manger”, “The Oxen”, and “The Star”) are more contemplative and reflective. “The Star” evokes warmth and light throughout with its tonal but complex harmonies, each verse exploring a different source for that light; the newborn babe at the nativity, the heavens, and the mother.

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Completing the Circle

Dale Trumbore 

Contemporary American composer Dale Trumbore’s “Completing the Circle” was commissioned by a group of sixteen choirs forming the Christmas Past, Christmas Future! Carol Consortium, and sets to music the poem “Advent” by prolific American poet Barbara Crooker. The text’s depiction of holiday rituals summons nostalgia for the creation of joy and celebration in the dark of winter. Echoing melodies call to mind not only the rings, circles, and wreaths of the poem, but also the cyclical nature of time and repetition of traditions through the holiday season each year.

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Every Heart Shall Open

Tim Takach

The author of the words to “Every Heart Shall Open,” Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965), was a celebrated British writer best known for her children’s literature and her Christian hymn “Morning Has Broken,” popularized as a folk song decades later by Cat Stevens. Composer Timothy C. Takach adapted her poem “A Child’s Carol” for use in his piece, referring to the poem as “a true carol, with lines that scan rhythmically across stanzas and a refrain that when repeated helps embed her message in us.” His music, which balances the voices of the choir evenly for most of the piece, fittingly resembles a four-part hymn.

In his score, Takach gives choirs the option to use either masculine or gender-neutral third-person pronouns when referring to “the stranger.” He notes in describing this poetic choice: “Farjeon has used metaphors in her other poetry (Rose, Guest, Love) when she refers to Jesus, but here, when she references The Stranger, she may mean the Christ Child specifically, and she may mean a non-sacred instance of a stranger. Regardless of the poet’s intention, there is a passage in John 10:30 when Jesus says ‘I and the Father are one,’ and so referring to the divine as a plural ‘they’ feels very natural.”

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Lo how a Rose e’er Blooming

arr. Matthew Culloton

This long-loved German Christmas carol uses the imagery of a blossoming rose to represent Jesus Christ and his birth. The “tender stem” from which the rose blooms is a reference to the “stem of Jesse,” a prophetic statement interpreted in Christian theology as the lineage of Jesus (see Isaiah 11:1, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots”). While this hymn text and its tune, ES IST EIN’ ROS, date back to 1599, the hymn was not translated into English until the mid-1800s. Matthew Culloton’s modern arrangement maintains most of the familiar harmonies, but plays with the meter, stretching and shifting the hymn’s distinctive rhythm patterns so as to create “an almost meterless atmosphere.”

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Carol of the Angels

Eric Barnum

Originally commissioned in 2010 by Choral Arts Northwest, contemporary American composer Eric William Barnum’s “Carol of the Angels” offers a refreshing take on the “true meaning of Christmas” motif. The text, written by American conductor and poet Robert Bode, depicts a busy holiday shopper who keeps hearing the “sounding” of an otherworldly song while buying gifts. The Latin words of the song—“Ave Rex caelorum! / Christus natus est” (“Hail, King of the Heavens / Christ is born”)—remind the speaker of the holiday’s sacred origins, ultimately prompting them to declare, “It’s heaven's music that I hear.” Barnum captures the speaker’s gradual realization by using the Latin text as a refrain, or repeated musical phrase, that is heard throughout the entire piece. Sung in unison at the song’s opening, the refrain then fades behind the English text as it is passed back and forth between different voice parts. By the end of the piece, however, all voices join back together to sing the refrain—reflecting how, in the speaker’s words, the heavenly song “grows until it overflows” and “fill[s] the earth.”

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Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day

arr. Matthew Culloton

“Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” is a joyous English carol with deep historical roots: historians estimate the original text to be medieval, with the term “dancing day” dating back to the fifteenth century. In this poem, Jesus tells the story of his life in his own voice, repeatedly characterizing his life as a “dance” then reflected in the lilting, leaping melody. Numerous composers have arranged their own versions of this traditional tune, including Gustav Holst, Igor Stravinsky, and John Rutter. In this setting from American composer Matthew Culloton, the tenor melody line in verse one is accompanied by a choral arrangement that evokes the pizzicato sound of plucked strings, before the other parts join the tenors in a growing layered melody as it builds towards its buoyant climax.

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Audience Carol: O Come All Ye Faithful

arr. David Willocks

Piano, Tristan Leung

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Silent Night

arr. Dan Forrest

Piano, Tristan Leung

Renowned for his “superb writing…full of spine-tingling moments,” American composer Dan Forrest breathes new life into this beloved carol through an expressive choral arrangement with instrumental accompaniment. Originally sung in German and titled “Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht,” “Silent Night” made its debut in a small Austrian village in 1818, on Christmas Eve. Featuring 

poetry written by Joseph Mohr, the village parish priest, and a melody composed by schoolteacher Franz Gruber, this gentle ode to Christ’s birth was meant to offer hope to a community ravaged by the recent Napoleonic wars. The song was well-received, so much so that it quickly spread across the continent, eventually reaching American audiences by 1839. Today, “Silent Night” is performed worldwide and has been translated into over 300 languages. Dan Forrest’s setting of the song, which begins with “quiet intensity” and “gradually build[s] into” an outpouring of emotion, only enhances its affect, encouraging audiences to find comfort in the song’s universal message of peace. 

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The World for Christmas

Anders Edenroth

The composition of “The World for Christmas” began with its final line, “give me a present for the future”. In addition to performing with and writing for famed Swedish a cappella group The Real Group, Edenroth has long identified as an environmentalist, and felt that sentiment captured many of his feelings about the planet. This piece, and its subtitle “Leia’s Song”, came from Edenroth meeting a friend’s 3 day old daughter, and finding the words in her voice to wish for a bright and sustainable future. It begins with lines from “T’was the Night Before Christmas”, building anticipation before the newborn narrator asks for their perfect gift: the blue green world (though they promise to share). It calls for those here now not to “fill up your stockings way over the brim”, but instead to ensure that the generations coming after can still share in the Earth’s natural beauty and light.

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Joy to the World

arr. Dan Forrest

Piano, Danny Green and Tristan Leung

Composer Dan Forrest draws on traditional Irish musical elements to pair the familiar carol with a newly composed Irish slide (a 12/8 tune similar to a single jig). Though now a holiday classic, this song originally featured in a 18th-century book of poetry based on the Book of Psalms, written by English minister Isaac Watts. Later, in 1848, American composer Lowell Mason set the poem to music, and it was only then that it became associated with Christmas. Forrest’s arrangement results in an explosion of joyous energy that breathes new life into the original.

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